


Occurrences

by Calais_Reno



Series: Concurrence Universe [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, M/M, Temporal Paradox, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 21:50:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20053081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calais_Reno/pseuds/Calais_Reno
Summary: Little extras from the Concurrent Universe. Tidying up some plot holes and paradoxes.All are short and will make more sense if you've read the original story.





	1. Before His Time

**Author's Note:**

> While Sherlock is still stuck in 1882, finding manuscripts Moriarty wants, he finds Watson’s old desk.

1882

I was hunting for slavery tracts when I saw it: _On the Immorality of the Slave Trade, by Titus Glover, a freed man_.

It was not on my list, so maybe I could let it go. Still, I hadn’t found much in the past two weeks. Moran would surely expect something to show I was following directions, whittling down the list. This might qualify as a step towards my goal. And even if I didn’t take it out of circulation, it would probably not survive. The edges of the pamphlet were already crumbling, the ink fading. Whether there were other copies, I did not know.

Sighing, I took it to the cashier and handed over five pence.

It was then that I spied the desk.

A lovely roll-top pedestal desk. Not for sale, of course, but worth dreaming about. I could see it right at home in my flat at 221B Baker Street. If only this were 2010, not 1882, I would buy it without hesitation. Watson would call it an unnecessary extravagance, but that did not lessen its beauty.

Perhaps I could buy it and store it in the basement of 221B. Then, when I returned to 2010, if no one had discarded it, I might bring it into the flat.

Noting my interest, the bookseller, an old man with a hunched back and long, dirty grey hair, nodded.

I ran my hands over the wood, feeling the grain. It was old, a bit damaged, but the drawers did not stick. “Where did you find this?” I asked.

“On the street,” the dealer said. “Eviction. Somebody’s loss, my gain.”

I pulled a drawer open, realised that there was some kind of internal mechanism concealing another drawer within. Finding the release, I pushed it.

The drawer that sprang open contained paper. _The Adventures of Ormond Sacker, Time Traveler._

I smiled. It was Watson’s lost manuscript. I remembered how my doctor had cried when his worldly possessions were set out on the street and picked over by passers-by. That was when I was still his patient, still at Bedlam. Strange that after just a few weeks, that time already seemed like ancient history.

“What will you take for it?” I asked.

The man shrugged. “What’ll you give me?”

We bartered back and forth, I with determination, and the owner half-heartedly. “It’s occupying valuable space,” I pointed out. “I’ll give you half a crown.”

The man frowned, but said, “All right, if you can pick it up tonight.”

“I’ll send some boys.”

That night, the desk secured in the basement storage room at Baker Street, I read the manuscript, and the others that I found in the hidden drawer. When I was finished, I placed them carefully back into the drawer.

The world was not quite ready for the works of Ormond Sacker, I decided. But the twenty-first century would love him.

1923

“Drink your tea. You must steady your nerves, sir.” Katja patted my shoulder. “I am not the piece of the puzzle you can solve. You must save John Watson.”

With shaking hands, I set my cup into the saucer. “How do you know—”

“We will meet again,” she said. “Calm yourself. Go save John Watson.”

I stood and composed myself. “Thank you.”

She nodded. “This is for you.” She handed me what appeared to be a paper-bound book.

I read the cover. _Ormond Sacher: Abenteuer eines Zeitreisenden._

“A good story will always find its fans,” she said, smiling. “In whatever time it is discovered.”

“How…?”

“Be safe,” she said. “_Kiene Paradoxien_.”

2010

I found John in the basement of our building, looking through boxes. It was not the boxes he was staring at, though. “What is this?”

“It appears to be an antique desk,” I said.

He pressed his fist to his mouth, suppressing tears. “It appears to be my desk. Where I kept my manuscripts. My lost manuscripts.”

“One particular manuscript, I believe, was removed and handed on to another traveler,” I said, holding out the book. “Before its time, but it has had quite a long journey.”

He looked at the cover, bit his lip. “Ormond Sacker! My story!”

I enveloped him in my arms. “Congratulations, Dr Watson. Your story has found its audience.”


	2. Causal Loop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One possible answer to several questions.

2010 November

“I’m puzzled.”

“Hm?” I looked up from my phone. “Sorry. Lestrade is trying to persuade me to take a case. Sounds like a four, at best.”

John was looking perplexed, which meant he looked absolutely adorable. I pulled him to me and kissed him soundly. He melted into the kiss, sighing.

“What’s puzzling?” I asked.

“It’s probably nothing,” he said. “But— Lestrade?”

“What about him?” My phone buzzed again. The DI was being very insistent.

“Well, is he the great-grandson of the other Lestrade, the one we knew in 1881?”

“Hmm?” I looked up just in time to see a mouse run behind the refrigerator. “Causal Loop.”

* * *

Lestrade stared at the large envelope that Donovan had just handed him. It was a kraft envelope, the kind with the string fastener. On the front was written: _To Gregory Lestrade._

“What’s this?”

“From Merritt, the Yard historian.”

“We have an historian?”

Sally folded her arms across her chest. “He minds the archives, the things nobody has bothered to digitalise.”

He imagined a room in the basement of NSY lined with boxes full of papers nobody would ever look at. The idea that somebody was in charge of that mess had never occurred to him. History was like that, piles of rubbish that somebody thought should be catalogued.

He began opening the envelope. “Did he say what it’s about?”

“Thought it might interest you.”

He pulled out a pile of police reports written in longhand on heavy yellowed paper. At the top, on the line indicating the officer filing the report, he saw his own name.

“My great-grandfather,” he said. “He was an officer back in the day. I never knew him, but my father did. He died when Dad was a boy. I was named for him.”

“Is that why you joined the force?” Sally asked.

“I guess it was in my blood.” He turned the pages, reading reports of muggings and burglaries. “He was promoted to Inspector, worked on murder cases. Funny I should end up doing the same job—”

Sally frowned. “What?” She looked over his shoulder.

He was looking at a the report of a murder investigation. One particular detail caught his attention, a name: _Sherlock Holmes. _

“Bloody hell,” she said. “I suppose it’s his great-granddad. Or a relative. Family name. Why else would someone name a kid Sherlock?”

He turned the report over and saw photos. “That was when they were just starting to take photos of crime scenes,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine how—”

They both froze, staring at a picture of a man in a long Inverness coat, wearing a deerstalker hat and pointing to a piece of evidence. _That face_—

“Impossible,” said Sally.

He shook his head. He was thinking of an antique bullet that was in box somewhere in the evidence room. And he was remembering something John Watson had once said to him, just a few months earlier. _Even smart people sometimes stumble into a paradox._

“Causal loop,” he said.

**Author's Note:**

> One year ago, I posted the first chapter of Concurrence. No sequel to the original story yet, but I have a few ideas.


End file.
